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EDITOR: Gov. Scott Walker has shown more of his stripes. His contempt for publicly provided services is clear by his gradual defunding of the University of Wisconsin System, down $300 million now, $250 million in his previous budget, and by reductions to the K-12 public schools by $130 million now on top of previous reductions. He also makes cuts from our very successful technical schools on top of his previous budget cut.

Walker's vision is that you are on your own. Find a school, if one exists. It will be private and, if you can pay the full price, go for it, because he seems to see little public value in an educated or trained workforce.

Notice that Walker is not responding to a public clamber to close public schools! He is apparently operating on an ideological theory written by Ayn Rand, subscribed to by former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, that we should all be on our own and we will experience heaven on earth. Application of that economic theory resulted in the greatest recession since the Great Depression. Greenspan since admitted that he was wrong.

That experience has not phased Walker. He's doubling down with his own continuing experiment, the assault on public schools from kindergarten through technical and graduate school.

Of course, there are quality private schools on all levels. I graduated from one. But there are also private schools which have sprung up in recent years, which take public money and don't serve the broad range of community students, or they abruptly close and dump students on public schools. Some private post-high schools leave students with incomplete or useless education despite inescapable debt.

Our public K-12, technical and university systems have developed a wonderful reputation. Walker, for some unexpressed reason, is dismantling them. Members of the Assembly and the state Senate are the only ones who can stop this debacle. Since the state Legislature has been packed with similar radicals and Walker toadies, it is unlikely that Walker will be backed down. What they should remember is that there will be subsequent elections and, if they dare to run again, they will have to face the electorate.